“I can try,” said Tiktok. “It used to be that one could get past the gi-ant by walk-ing right up to the place where the ham-mer falls, and then, when the ham-mer ris-es, step-ping quick-ly und-er it. How-ev-er, the Nome King has ver-y clev-er en-gin-eers, and they were ab-le to speed up the gi-ant’s ham-mer. It is still pos-sib-le to get und-er it by walk-ing, but you must be ver-y quick in-deed.”

“Is there another way?” asked Ginny.

“I am not sure. It is too bad that none of you are birds, for then it would be ver-y eas-y to ad-vise you what to do.”

“Well, we’re not birds,” said Ron, “but we can fly. We’ve got broomsticks. The problem is the flying lizards.”

“You can fly as witch-es do, on broom-sticks? Then it is sim-ple,” said Tiktok. “If you will wind up my ac-tion, Gin-ny, then I can help you.”

So Ginny turned and turned the key in his back, and Tiktok clicked and whirred and lurched out of his niche. He took a couple of steps and almost fell, for his body was round and very heavy and his legs quite thin, but he managed to balance himself. Then he carefully bowed very low.

“I must be un-used to walk-ing,” he said. “But my joints all ap-pear to be in ver-y good work-ing or-der. You have done an ex-cel-lent job of re-pair-ing me.”

“It was just a spell,” said Ginny. “A repair spell.”

“Ah!” said Tiktok. “I some-times wish I could do mag-ic as witch-es and wiz-ards do. It must be ver-y hand-y in-deed. Still, I have my clock-work which works ver-y well. I can-not com-plain. — Now, to get past the gi-ant, you must fly; but in or-der to fly, you must get past the fly-ing liz-ards. This is not dif-fi-cult once you know how. Is there some-one a-mong you who is good at in-sult-ing peo-ple?”

“What?” said Hermione.

“The liz-ards are quick to take of-fense,” said Tiktok. “If one of you stands to one side and shouts in-sults at them, they will swarm and at-tack them. The rest of you can then quick-ly fly to the oth-er side of the gi-ant with the ham-mer. Then, one of you on the oth-er side can start in-sult-ing the li-zards. While they swarm that per-son, then the one left be-hind can fly a-cross.”

Ron started laughing, then stopped when no one else joined in.

“What?” he said. “It wasn’t a joke?”

“I am sor-ry to say that I can-not joke,” said Tiktok. “My mak-ers, Smith and Tin-ker, were mar-vel-ous in-vent-ors, but they did not give me hum-or-ous clock-work.”

“Makes sense to me,” said Luna. “Not unlike the Uifrimin of Scotland. They’re a kind of pixie, I believe. You can attract them with cakes, whisky, or insults. Insults work best.”

“But the person shouting the insults is going to get completely swarmed,” said Ron.

“That is a dis-ad-vantage,” said Tiktok. “I would of-fer to do that my-self, since their bites and fire can-not harm my cop-per bod-y bad-ly, but while they are dis-trac-ted I will be gath-er-ing their eggs.”

“What? Why?” asked Neville.

“To help you es-cape the Nome King,” said Tiktok. “Eggs are poi-son-ous to Nomes. They are un-der-ground creat-ures, creat-ures of dark-ness and life-less-ness, and an egg con-tains more life than an-y-thing else I know. A sin-gle egg con-tains mil-lions of gen-er-a-tions of liv-ing things. It is a shame you do not have a chick-en, for chick-en eggs are most poi-son-ous of all to them.”

“Well, it’s ok,” said Harry. “I have the pink pearl, so the lizards can’t harm me.”

“It is ver-y good that you have the pink pearl,” said Tiktok. “The Nome King will not be a-ble to harm you. How-ev-er, he can still im-pris-on you for-ev-er.”

“We know,” said Harry grimly. “We’ll just have to figure that out when we get there.”

“Then we will use your plan to get past the giant,” said Hermione. “But Tiktok, will you come with us? You seem like someone who would be very helpful to have on our journey. You’re tough and strong and you know so much.”

“Also, he won’t eat our provisions,” said Ron approvingly.

“That is true,” said Tiktok. “I am ve-ry use-ful on ad-ven-tures be-cause my mak-ers, Smith and Tink-er, did an ex-cel-lent job. I am strong and loy-al and I do not need to sleep or eat, and I will run for-ev-er, as long as I am kept wound up. How-ev-er, I must stay here. I need to help my broth-er.”

“Your brother?” said Ginny. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“The gi-ant with the ham-mer,” said Tiktok, gesturing. “He was al-so made by Smith and Tink-er. He was not made with the same clock-work steel brains as my-self, and he can-not speak, and he thinks very lit-tle, and he can-not move, ex-cept to swing his ham-mer. He has a hard life, stand-ing here in this waste a-lone. Years ago, I was liv-ing in the Em-er-ald Ci-ty of Oz, and I lived in a pal-ace; and I had man-y friends and I went on man-y ad-ven-tures. My life was very good in-deed. And I thought to my-self that my broth-er should not be den-ied these things sim-ply be-cause he can-not think or talk or move as well as I can. So I came to this place to try to speak with him, to teach him to talk and may-be help him es-cape this slav-er-y.”

“Crikey,” said Ron. “That’s amazing. Did you make any headway?”

“Sad-ly, no,” said Tiktok. “I spoke with him until my speech ran down, then I walked a-round him un-til my ac-tion ran down, and then I stood and thought a-bout how I could help him un-til my thoughts ran down. But he is not made to talk or think or move a-round; it is not in his nature.”

“I’ve never heard anything so sad before in my life,” said Luna.

“Perhaps you could find Smith and Tinker?” asked Hermione. “Maybe they could… change his nature?”

“A-las, they are dead, or mis-sing,” said Tiktok. “Smith, who was a bril-liant art-ist, once paint-ed a riv-er that was so re-a-lis-tic that he fell in-to it and drowned. And Tink-er con-struct-ed a lad-der long e-nough to reach the moon, and climbed up, and pulled it up aft-er him-self. And I do not know if there ex-ists an-y-one clev-er e-nough to give the gi-ant speech and teach him to think a-bout an-y-thing but ham-mers.”

Harry noticed that Hagrid was sitting on the ground nearby, sobbing gently. He went over and put a hand on the big man’s arm.

“Are you ok, Hagrid?” he asked.

“Oh sure,” said Hagrid. “I’m fine really. Sorry, Harry. I was just thinking — you know, just thinking about old Grawp.”

“He’s ok, isn’t he?” asked Harry. “Isn’t he living in that house you helped him build at the edge of the forest?”

“Oh sure,” said Hagrid, wiping his eyes. “He’s doing great. It took a long time, you know, for him to learn, but he’s fine and it’s wonderful to have a brother. But I feel like I know what Tiktok is going through.”

“I wonder if he feels emotions?” asked Harry. “It seems like he’s just a robot.”

“It don’t matter if he feels the emotions,” said Hagrid. “It’s a sad situation, isn’t it?”

Harry nodded thoughtfully and turned back to the others.

“But whoever carries the pink pearl is impervious to the lizards as well,” Hermione was saying. “Harry, for example, could insult them and draw them away, instead of you. And then you could gather the eggs.”

“I be-lieve that would work,” said Tiktok.

“But don’t the flying lizards need those eggs?” said Luna. “That’s a bit cruel, isn’t it? I mean, with chicken eggs, they aren’t fertilized unless there’s a rooster around, so it doesn’t matter, but here you could really disrupt their population.”

“The fly-ing liz-ards were brought here man-y years a-go by the Nome King, to help pro-tect his king-dom,” said Tiktok. “They have no pre-da-tors in the a-re-a and in fact they would die out if the ser-vants of the Nome King did not come out and feed them reg-u-lar-ly. Look a-round: these moun-tains are life-less. There is no-thing for them to eat here. And be-sides, you will on-ly need a few eggs to scare the Nomes; and the fly-ing liz-ards lay thou-sands in their nests.”

“All right,” said Luna. “I’m sold. Let’s do this.”

“Harry,” whispered Hagrid, “do you think you might ask Mr Tiktok to gather me a few extra eggs?”

“Hagrid!” said Harry. “You’re not thinking of taking some home?”

“Oh, but they’d be very educational for the students,” said Hagrid. “You can’t deny that, Harry. I’m sure they’d be no trouble.”

“I’ll ask,” said Harry.

Under Tiktok’s direction, the wizards and elves got ready. Harry positioned himself on his broom hovering just below the edge of the cliff top. The rest of the wizards gathered in the ravine not far from where the giant’s hammer fell, ready to zip up and around it. Tiktok began carefully clambering up the rocks on the opposite side of the ravine from Harry, toward a cut in the rocks where the nest he was after was hidden.

Harry carefully watched Tiktok, waiting until the mechanical man was almost at the top, and then he launched himself up over the edge of the ravine.

Once again, he could see the flying lizards swarming around him — with some difficulty, since they were so small — but they didn’t harm him at all. He gritted his teeth and, feeling a bit ridiculous, tried to think of a terrible insult.

“Hey you!” he shouted. “You flying lizards! You’re a bunch of… a bunch of idiots! Um.” This was trickier than he’d thought. “You know,” he shouted, “uh… I was told you were really dangerous! Really scary! But it turns out you’re nothing! I can barely even see you!”

He paused, trying to see if there was any effect. Was the cloud around him getting a little thicker? He thought he could hear them, too, a slight buzzing. It was hard to tell over the pounding of the giant’s hammer.

“I mean, you’re nothing but a bunch of insects! I bet a hive of bees could just, you know, wipe you all out! Um. I bet a single bee could! I mean, at least they know how to use their stingers!”

Was he making any sense at all? He felt like such an idiot.

“Keep going, Harry!” shouted Neville from below. “You’re doing great!”

Hermione shushed him immediately — they were not to call attention to themselves. But Harry was grateful for the encouragement.

“You know,” said Harry, “there’s only one thing more pathetic than you, and that’s a flobberworm! You’re all basically flying flobberworms! I should catch some of you and use you as fishing bait!”

It was definitely having an effect. He seemed to be surrounded by a shimmering haze, with little black specks that darted everywhere, making his eyes water; and the humming was getting loud enough to fill his ears.

“Uh,” he said. “And another thing! Uh. You know what? I bet you’re not even good enough to use as bait! I bet any fish stupid enough to try and eat you would just spit you right out again!”

That was a terrible insult, he thought to himself. Terrible, as in, not very insulting at all. But it had definitely worked. He could no longer see anything but the haze in front of him. He thought he could hear some distant shouting, but mostly all he could hear was the swarm of lizards and the pounding of the hammer.

Now, the next part of the plan was for him to fly around the giant and land in the ravine on the other side. But… he couldn’t see anything. How was he going to fly back?

He began to panic, just a little.

Experimentally, he tried moving the broom forward. It seemed to work, as far as he could tell — it felt like he was moving — but he couldn’t see anything but the cloud of lizards; there was no way to be sure.

“Help!” he shouted. “I can’t see anything!”

He thought maybe he heard some shouting in reply, but he wasn’t sure.

None of them could fly up and help him, because of the lizards. Tiktok wouldn’t be hurt by the lizards, but he couldn’t fly. He’d have to figure this out himself.

Maybe the lizards would just… give up after a while?

But Harry didn’t think he could afford to wait that long. He racked his brains trying to think of a spell that would get him out of this. Incendio might work — it wouldn’t get all of them but maybe it would scare some of them off?

“Incendio!” he cried, and cast it directly in front of him. The jet of fire seemed to zip right through the cloud of lizards with almost no effect. If anything, the cloud became thicker, and the buzzing louder.

Ok, this was ridiculous, he thought. Think about it rationally. Ok. I have the pink pearl. Nothing can harm me, right? So even if I fly straight into a mountain, or crash into the ground, or run right into that giant’s hammer, I’ll be ok.

Although maybe my broomstick might get smashed.

So, ok, he’d avoid the hammer (surely he’d be able to hear if he got too close to that) and fly slowly enough so that even if he did hit the ground, the broomstick would probably be ok. He should just try to fly blind, to bring him around the giant and land him in the ravine. He just had to trust his sense of direction.

Slowly, carefully, he leaned forward, slowly moving the broomstick at what he hoped was a slow walking pace. Gradually, the sound of the hammer moved, starting ahead of him on the right, moving past him on the right, and after a long time, behind him to his right. Ok. Now he just needed to make it to the ravine. He angled the broomstick down and to the right, going even more slowly. He wasn’t sure where the ground was — it might have been rising on the other side of the giant, he wasn’t sure — and he stuck his legs out under him, hoping his feet would stop him before he hurt his broomstick. And hoping that the pink pearl would keep him from breaking his legs.

Abruptly the cloud of lizards disappeared, and he was in the ravine, dropping faster than he’d thought. He released his breath (he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it) and headed for the path below.

Where were the others?

He was definitely past the giant; he could see it just a couple of hundred yards back down the ravine, its back towards him, the hammer pounding relentlessly. But there was no sign of any of his friends, or Tiktok for that matter.

Were they still back there on the other side of the giant? Why? Hadn’t the plan worked?

He hopped back on his broomstick and started flying low through the ravine back towards the giant. That is, he tried to hop back on his broomstick, but something was stuck to his leg — he couldn’t lift it off the ground. He looked down and saw that one of the rocks seemed to have grown a hand and was gripping his ankle, gently but firmly.

He couldn’t help it: he screamed. And suddenly the rocks around him seemed to shift and swirl, and there were dozens of hands coming out of the rocks, reaching for him. Many of the rocks grew faces and eyes and mouths, distorted, uncanny faces, with misshapen features and horrible teeth.

Harry’s wand was out. “Incendio!” he cried without thinking. Of course, fire had no effect on stones. “Immobulus!” That seemed to work on one or two stones, but then it was too late: he was pulled down. Rock-hard, cold hands covered his mouth and eyes, the earth seemed to open up under him, and then there was nothing but darkness.